OVER the past 10 years educational standards have improved considerably.

More children get more examination passes and scores are considerably higher on the tests children sit. Yet as fast as there has been improvement, this has exposed more than ever the children who find learning difficult and the schools that find teaching them close to impossible.

Take the secondary school system. There are many secondary schools in England and Wales where 100% of the children achieve five or more "high grade" GCSEs, one of the benchmarks by which we assess school quality.

Many more of these schools exist than ever before, yet the existence of schools with only a small percentage of pupils passing these exams means that the differences between schools are now, paradoxically, bigger than ever before.

In England, there have been - as one might expect - robust and powerful attempts to improve these low-performing schools. Some have been shut, never to re-open again. Some have been shut and reopened as "Fresh Start" schools.

Many have been the subject of Ofsted "special measures" or have been labelled as having "serious weaknesses", and in both these sets of circumstances a regime of considerable "pressure and support" operates in an attempt to improve things.

In England, the intention is that the educational market of parental choice will operate to drive out poor standards by emptying poor schools of pupils and then naturally shutting them. Yet, of course, there is a considerable period of time - probably years - as the market works its infernal mechanisms. During that time schools will spiral down, results will drop and things may get worse.

This downward spiral in some schools is probably the explanation for why results aren't getting better in England as rapidly as government wants - the improvements in many schools are outweighed by catastrophic declines in others.

Given all this, what can be done with schools like this in Wales? Firstly, we have to acknowledge that the schools have multiple pathologies - numbers spiralling down affecting morale, insecure staff, probably negative perceptions of the children in the minds of teachers and probably negative perceptions of each other in teachers' minds.

With problems like these, schools need sensitive, informed, psychologically aware help - psychiatric help or social work help at the very least. Difficult situations need healing help.

Secondly, these schools need to remember that their core business is facilitating teaching and learning. Many of them will have been side-tracked into working as relief agencies or as social workers to their children and will have taken their eye off the ball of teaching.

Sometimes the teachers themselves will have retreated from their teaching into child rearing because it is easier, and now simply hand out the schemes and the reading texts and leave the children to get on with it.

Sometimes teachers will have been so bruised by what has happened that when they tried to actively teach they have virtually given up. None of these responses is acceptable. Teachers need to teach again.

Thirdly, these schools need some quick wins to build morale, self-confidence and hope for the future among their probably demoralised staff.

Working with parents is a long-term thing - they are likely to come on board only after a school has been turned around, not before. Examination results may be two or three years in coming in terms of any improvement.

What can change very rapidly in these schools are things like attendance rate - just five or 10 children returning to school after a pleasant time in semi-retirement looking at day-time television at home can have a very big impact on the attendance figures.

Clearing up the school site by removing the drink cans, cigarette packs and copies of tabloid newspapers that are blowing around the grounds is easy, visible and bound to improve morale.

Sports results can also be an area where a school in tough circumstances can take on other schools and win.

All these are ways in which poor schools can help themselves improve. Simply shutting them down is not adequate, since the damage done to children in the process of shutting may be huge.

These schools need help, encouragement and hope. This approach may not make headlines in newspapers but it will make better schools, happier teachers and more educated children.

David Reynolds is Professor of Education at the University of Exeter and is one of England's leading education policymakers. He lives in South Wales where his children attend Welsh-medium schools.